The Pursuit of Happyness

Lokendra Tamang is a 13-year-old boy, living together with his mother Laxmi in Manthali, Nepal. He has big dreams for his future; he wants to open his own business one day.

But life hasn’t always been easy for him. At his young age, Lokendra is facing many challenges that prevent him from doing what kids his age usually do — go to school and play with friends. Surrounded by poverty in an underdeveloped community with bad roads and no permanent access to electricity, his parents realized that they didn’t have much to offer him. They saw only one option to improve their situation: foreign employment. Nepal is a country with one of the highest proportions of its population leaving the country for foreign employment. According to the Nepali government, around 14 percent of the population work abroad, making remittance a major contributor to development financing in Nepal.

Like many other Nepalis, Lokendra´s father Tarman Tamang left to Malaysia in 2005. In order to cover all the expenses of securing employment abroad, Lokendra´s parents took a loan of NRP 100,000. Lokendra was only 3 years old when his father left; he grew up not having his father around. All responsibility for carrying for Lokendra and their farm rested, from that point forward, on his mother Laxmi. But their dream of a better future was dashed shortly after Tarman’s arrival to Malaysia. Facing bad working conditions and low pay, his father wasn’t able to send any money back to his family. Then, after two years, he just vanished. Until today, nobody knows where Lokendra´s father is or what happened to him. Already traumatised by the disappearance of their father and husband, the family has also had to deal with high debts, making it impossible to send Lokendra to a good school. His mother has done the best she can, working on their farm to support her son. But her salary is insufficient to support Lokendra’s education.

Thanks to CMIR´s initiative, Lokendra was given the opportunity to continue his studies. In his case, there is a possibility to arrest the perpetration of migration as his only prospect of income. Perhaps, he will be able to decide what is best for him, and choose education and will undertake a career instead of having unskilled labour as his only future. Like him, fifteen other children were given the same opportunity. They were given hope. Our aim as an NGO is to protect these kids from dropping out of school and giving them equal opportunity by ensuring them an education. This year we are trying to expand our scholarship fund to support more kids.

Through our campaign, “The world is one family”, we want you to be part of our mission and support migrant workers' kids in need.

Every contribution matters, so let's work together and make this world a bit better – together!

#theworldis1family